Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

falling asleep within minutes

9 replies

JumpJockey · 01/02/2011 20:19

DD is 2 weeks old but came at 35+4 and we has a few problems getting her feeding started - seems to be going fine now, except that very often she'll latch on, get one big let-down of milk, then fall asleep - has just done so after 3 minutes. She'll wake up in about 10 mins and (obviously) be hungry again/still.

Is there a way to persuade her to stay awake and feeding for longer? I've tried stripping/ tickling/ rubbing her hands/squeezing her bum etc but to no avail. Oddly enough we had a nap together this afternoon and she had a quick feed then was still latched on when I woke up half an hour later, but with a toddler in the house I can't go and lie down with her every time she needs a feed (alas!)

OP posts:
Snuppeline · 01/02/2011 20:22

Could you try to do something very rigorous with her to wake her up, definetely take off her a layer of clothes but perhaps also change position, speak to her, walk around with her. Make it a whole change of scene after the one let down? Its hard when their small but hopefully she'll take more soon. Someone else may have better advise!

tiktok · 01/02/2011 20:30

Hi, Jump. Not sure why you feel you cannot let her sleep for a few mins when she drops off. Is her weight ok? If so, it's prob fine just to accept that this is what she needs now - esp as she wakes up a little bit later and has more.

The tickling and squeezing you are doing is not working and could be making her 'switch off' to avoid the excessive stimulation.

Can you let her do her thing and just let things work out?

Original poster
JumpJockey · 01/02/2011 20:37

I guess it's just that I know she can get a decent feed in, and when we've had the on-off thing a lot it's very hard to remember which one she should be on! I'm happy for her to drop off and have a little rest, just getting a bit tender with repeated latchings-on. Once she's on she has a pretty good hold so it's not a problem with bad latch making her stop feeding.

Weight - she was a good size for her age (6lb 11oz) but dropped quite a bit in hospital, has been regaining quite well. In fact can I ask about that - even when she was only 36 hours old, her blood sugars dropped down and I was told she would have to be tube fed as she couldn't bf well enough to get the energy she needed. They weighed her and gave her 34mls formula every 3 hours - at a stage when I'd have thought she was only needing a few mls colostrum. Is this right?! After a couple of days she was feeding ok but it was very upsetting to see them shoving such a huge amount into her tiny tummy :(

OP posts:
tiktok · 01/02/2011 23:38

Jump - letting her doze when she wants to doze does not mean she won't get a good feed...she is dozing and then waking up and having more to eat, so it sounds as if she knows what she is doing :)

I agree that sounds like a large amount of formula - did they explain why she needed as much as this? Maybe her condition warranted it.

Original poster
JumpJockey · 02/02/2011 11:04

Oh dear - you've inadvertently opened the floodgates here! Wink

She arrived early but at good weight, so instead of NICU she and I went to the normal post natal ward for 24-ish hours observations and to try and get feeding established, being at an age where the sucking reflex wasn't very strong yet. Unfortunately her 12 hour blood sugar level was pretty low, so we had to stay in til it was stabilised. They said she needed a certain amount of formula per day per kilo of birth weight, divided into 8 equal feeds (every 3 hours, rather than BF on demand). I was 'allowed' to BF her before each one and they would top up according to how much milk they thought she'd had.

The really horrid part was that she needed blood sugar levels testing before each feed, I wasn't allowed to BF her before this was done. I would call the nurses about 15 mins before the feed was 'due' (never mind if she was already awake and hungry long before then...) and say we needed someone to do the test. I think once someone came in time, usually it was about 15-30 minutes after the official feed time. She'd be awake and hungry, and then they'd stab her poor foot :( and she'd get more cross, and often be too upset to latch on, so she'd have to have the entire tube feed, fall asleep and then not be able to bf at all.

The worst part was I was told she could leave only after 24 hours with no top-up feeds - but they wouldn't let her not be topped up after a BF as they didn't know how much BM she'd had, so the cycle of being too full of formula to want BM and getting cross with the delay for the sugar test carried on. I pointed out that this was a vicious circle we couldn't get out of, and eventually they said she could bf and they'd top up less as my milk had come in. I also asked why she was being given such a vast amount of formula when she would often be sick and her tummy is so tiny anyway - answer "We know that the formula doesn't have as many concentrated nutrients as breast milk so we give them more in the hope that most of it will stay down". :( By the end of the third day I was expressing enough for the tube feeds but it still upsets me that they shoved so much into her tiny tummy without really giving her the chance to try bfing.

Sorry for that massive rant Blush it was just such a contrast to my first experience with dd1 where she was born at home and within a few hours we were snuggled up in bed and she could feed when she wanted.

OP posts:
Original poster
JumpJockey · 02/02/2011 11:05

PS meant to say, thanks for the advice! :) will just carry on as she wants. She's a bit snotty now which is making things harder for her as well so am going by her signs.

OP posts:
tiktok · 02/02/2011 11:11

Jump, I think I would agree with the questions you have about those early days, but it's behind you now...you can care for your dd how you want to and respond to her in the way that best meets her needs.

(The fact she has a blocked nose may make it more likely that she feeds in short-ish bursts - nothing wrong with that.)

MamaChris · 02/02/2011 11:30

JumpJockey, we have a similar story. that requirement to feed a fixed volume by tube is so hard.

my ds1 wasn't early, but inhaled meconium and ended up in NICU. We had to tube feed for 5 days. I was encouraged to express, but not to bf, and they only counted what volume went down the tube. In the end, he didn't latch till day 6 when a bf counsellor visited us in the hospital after which I refused to tube feed.

I still, 3 years on, remember feeling we would never escape that vicious cycle, pushing formula down the tube as he would bring it back up. He was also similar to your dd in his feeding habits once we got home - 5 minutes feed, 10 minutes sleep, and repeat - for the first several weeks. I don't know if that early experience of having his tummy overfilled was related, but I thought of the frequent short feeds as a way of us healing from the first week. It allowed his tummy never to get overfull, and required me to hold him next to me for much of the day, perhaps making up for the nurturing he missed in the beginning.

this is obviously easier with a first baby! when establishing bf this time, ds1 has had much more telly time than he used to, and spends a lot of time on the sofa with me reading stories. a sling helps us enormously too. good luck and congratulations on your dd. sounds like you're doing a great job.

Original poster
JumpJockey · 03/02/2011 20:40

Well she's evidently getting plenty, however she's doing it - midwife visited today and since last Friday she's gained 14oz Grin shall cease any kind of worrying immediately!

MamaChris, thanks for your experience, the idea of lots of feeds as a kind of 'healing' does make sense - making up for lost time.

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page